


Devout

by angeloscastiel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-31
Updated: 2013-05-31
Packaged: 2017-12-13 14:11:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/825202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloscastiel/pseuds/angeloscastiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has never been one for religion, but Castiel is his exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devout

Dean has always heaped scorn on the concept of _faith._

Before Hell, angels and Heaven didn’t exist because he’d never seen them. He believed in the evidence of his own eyes, in things that flinch at the touch of silver and burn under holy water. After Hell, in those terrifying days when his skin didn’t feel right, and he had screams that weren’t his own echoing in his mind, and the sun was too bright compared with the depths of the Pit, there was no way anything good could exist in the world. He didn’t believe in angels when one looked into his eyes and told him he was the one who _gripped him tight and raised him from perdition,_  because good things did not happen. He believed in angels when he discovered their corruption and their mercilessness and their doubts, when their _wrongness_ made them possible.

Of course, believing in something and having faith in it are two very different things.

The first time he prayed, it wasn’t faith. It was a sense of obligation and guilt for a girl he met in a muddy carpark who he cheated out of her healing. The second time he prayed, it wasn’t faith. It was a moment of desperation beside a vending machine at an overpriced hotel. The third time he prayed, it wasn’t faith – more a long-distance celestial phone call.

Somewhere along the line, Dean’s prayers became faith. Sometime after the Apocalypse and after Sam came back, when Castiel didn’t always come when Dean called him and his _Hey Cas, you there_ s held no guarantee of an answer, but he kept calling anyway. Somewhere along the line, Dean’s belief in Castiel became faith in him.

Perhaps it is ironic that Castiel’s flaws, the _cracks in his chassis,_ are the very things that brought the Righteous Man to faith.

When Castiel falls, the loss of his grace is the loss of all which ever made him remarkable. He no longer shines, he no longer soars, his hands no longer heal and his spirit can no longer hear Dean’s prayers. He is lost, drowning in humanity and weighted down by his sins with no wings to bring him out again, and mere faith is not enough for Dean to express the extent of his worth.

_Worship_ is not a concept Dean has ever thought about, but worshipping Castiel comes naturally.

Castiel mourns his grace with eloquence, with softly spoken words that give perfect voice to his grief and guilt and self-hatred, and Dean’s own words fail him in responding, so he takes Castiel’s words from his mouth before he can say them and his lips tell Castiel what his voice cannot. He kisses passion onto Castiel’s lips and reverence on his collarbone and desire into his neck, and his fingertips trace wonder on his chest and tenderness on his cheek and holy fire on his hips and Castiel’s eyes are alight with revelation.

Dean worships him until he _knows_ that his wings were not what made him holy, and though he has _fallen in every way possible_ he is still sacred, and he is no less radiant now, in the moonlight spilling through a crack in the curtains, than he was in the middle of an explosive manifestation of his grace. Dean worships Castiel until they are drowning in each other and Castiel is no longer lost or weighted by his sins, for he has found absolution.

Dean exalts Castiel until he has risen far higher than he ever fell.


End file.
